This invention relates generally to biosynthetic processes and, more specifically to organisms having primary alcohol biosynthetic capability.
Primary alcohols are a product class of compounds having a variety of industrial applications which include a variety of biofuels and specialty chemicals. Primary alcohols also can be used to make a large number of additional industrial products including polymers and surfactants. For example, higher primary alcohols (C4-C20) and their ethoxylates are used as surfactants in many consumer detergents, cleaning products and personal care products worldwide such as laundry powders and liquids, dishwashing liquid and hard surface cleaners. They are also used in the manufacture of a variety of industrial chemicals and in lubricating oil additives. Long-chain primary alcohols, such as octanol and hexanol, have useful organoleptic properties and have long been employed as fragrance and flavor materials. Smaller chain (C4-C8) higher primary alcohols (e.g., butanol) are used as chemical intermediates for production of derivatives such as acrylates used in paints, coatings, and adhesives applications.
Primary alcohols are currently produced from, for example, hydrogenation of fatty acids, hydroformylation of terminal olefins, partial oxidation of n-paraffins and the Al-catalyzed polymerization of ethylene. Unfortunately, it is not commercially viable to produce primary alcohols directly from the oxidation of petroleum-based linear hydrocarbons (n-paraffins). This impracticality is because the oxidation of n-paraffins produces primarily secondary alcohols, tertiary alcohols or ketones, or a mixture of these compounds, but does not produce high yields of primary alcohols. Additionally, currently known methods for producing primary alcohols suffer from the disadvantage that they are restricted to feedstock which is relatively expensive, notably ethylene, which is produced via the thermal cracking of petroleum. In addition, current methods require several steps, and several catalyst types.
LCA production by microorganisms involves fatty acid synthesis followed by acyl-reduction steps. The universal fatty acid biosynthesis pathway found in most cells has been investigated for production of LCAs and other fatty acid derivatives. There is currently a great deal of improvement that can be achieved to provide more efficient biosynthesis pathways for LCA production with significantly higher theoretical product and energy yields.
Thus, there exists a need for alternative means for effectively producing commercial quantities of primary alcohols. The present invention satisfies this need and provides related advantages as well.